I’m in school to become a high school chemistry teacher in the USA, and with my student teaching drawing near I’ve started to think of a couple of things that might come up in the classroom. Living in the Bible Belt in the south, in Tennessee who just passed a law last year requiring all public schools to display prominently the motto “in god we trust”. Being a science teacher I can see what i’m teaching causing students to ask questions or make comments about how what I’m saying may not align with religious beliefs, and I’m wondering what people’s opinions are on what a proper response would be.
I would like to be able to freely state my own opinions to my students, such that science teaches the established facts of how the world works and it shouldn’t matter what their religions say, but being in a super religious community I worry my job would be in jeopardy for voicing such opinions or that I was an atheist teaching their children.
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You live there, I don't; but if you're worried, so am I. I wouldn't stick your neck out too far; doubly so if you live in a small community.
@Drenth
Unfortunately I agree you have valid reasons to be concerned. However, I feel even if unwelcome in that area, a core part of what you need to teach especially in a chemistry class is teaching critical thinking, skepticism and the tools every child should learn to better interact and perhaps even thrive within the world. As a teacher of children you also have a wonderful opportunity to reach these minds before their beliefs and ways of thinking are set in stone, as for the most part, the older we get the more "set" in our ways we tend to get. There is a powerful reason religion likes to start as early as possible on reaching the minds of these children, the earlier they start the easier it is to get these kids to accept their rationale, no matter how flawed it may be.
Perhaps, you may be able to teach these skills without having to cross into the minefield that is religious belief. Show every student interested in learning just how amazing chemistry is, help create and grow that curiosity of the world around us, that drive to learn more about the world around us, introduce them, (or perhaps re-introduce if the idea was already presented to them in middle school,) to the scientific method as a powerful useful tool to them. Give them the tools to set their own minds free and learn to think critically and question everything, especially claims that lack any sort of real evidence. If questions of god come up, perhaps remind them this is the study of chemistry not god. Any questions they have about "god" is not your area of expertise.
If a particularly clever kid can make the connections to force the confrontation of chemistry and god because some of the two concepts (chemistry and god,) details are incompatible, perhaps tell the student that you will be happy to discuss after class. I bet 9 times out of 10 the student will forget or rather do something else.
I would not be to concerned about the "in god we trust" motto, it is already everywhere, I don't know the Tennessee law, but the way you presented it, it does not have a requirement to be displayed in the classroom, just somewhere on the school. Out of sight, out of mind for most kids. I do remember seeing the same motto in some of my classes, even as a young child I could have cared less my child mind did not even really notice it, it was only many years later in adulthood that I even cared about those words in the slightest.
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@logicFTW
The motto doesn’t bother me per-say, it’s more so that the states willingness to pass a law bringing a religious phrase (national motto or not) into public schools shows the deep rooted religious beliefs across the state.
I do plan on trying to excite them about learning chemistry as much as my own teachers did, and to show them the incredible world we live in through the lens of chemistry. One of the topics in chemistry that most interests me are the search for that pivotal moment where chemistry becomes biology and living organisms can come to be. However this again is a topic that treads all over religious beliefs such as intelligent design and creationism. I appreciate the insights, this isn’t a problem I had even thought of until recently. That teaching children could potentially put me at odds with their beliefs or their parents’ and their beliefs. Down here in the south I am the antithesis to what most of them are and believe in. An atheist, lefty, democrat, yankee from the north. I can’t tell you how many MAGA and Trump 2020 hats and rebel flag adorned clothes I see while I work at my current job.
@Drenth
Yikes on maga hats and rebel flag adorned clothes. That would be hard for me to get used to.
I think you have a very good attitude, which will help you a lot with this issue.
I could be wrong, but even in rural, "trump country" Tennessee, I think most of the kids won't be combative about your chemistry presentation. Unless perhaps if they were specifically pre-conditioned to have a negative response to any of these subjects. I hope that does not happen as that would be particularly nasty.
I always been an avid reader even as a child, but even as a freshman in HS, and my extensive reading, I failed to make many connections where chemistry even bio chem was at odds with various god concepts.
I imagine there is some sort of group somewhere where teachers can get together and discuss among themselves how best to deal with this potential problem. Or at least some literature on how to best deal with these conflicts.
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@drenth: I live just North of you in rural KY. People are nice but it is a monoculture of Christianity. No Synagogues, Mosques, or Ashrams. There is a local Lawyer and his wife who are atheists and fought the school system (partnered with the FFR) over distributing religious materials in the schools. They won. He is still a practicing Lawyer here but everyone says He's an atheist , you know!" when his name is mentioned. Food for thought. I keep a low profile. By the way, I am also a Yankee Atheist living in the Bible Belt.
Sometimes the teachings don't have to be direct. I'm sure there must be many chemistry experiments that teach us that it is not what we believe to be true that is true, or that it is not what may seem as the most obvious answers that are true. Things along those lines can teach the students to question their own beliefs and if ever the direct topic arises you can compare it to science to draw correlations.
Furthermore, instead of bringing their belief or their God into question, there are many others you can choose from like mythological gods.
Your job should be your priority.
Just my 2 cents
The best and most enduring advice I ever got about life, the universe and everything came from science teachers.
One, the only science teacher I had who was also a christian warned me off all prescription drugs in order to save the efficacy for later life when I'd need them. Proven for me now on the wrong side of 60.
Another, aptly named Mr Strange, took time from the syllabus to suggest provocative future issues (this was in the early 70s) about population problems, climate problems, the de-civilization of civilization and the immense importance for reading and critical thought. I believe I first heard the words 'question every bloody thing' from his lips. There were other science teachers delivering timely advice.
THEN there was the excitement and intrigue of their simple pre-computer experiments. The double slit experiment blew my mind.
Go get 'em Drenth and good luck.
My approach in that pathological envionment, would be not to be confrontational as a corollary of being vastly outnumbered, but instead to be subversive.
I'd start an introduction to chemistry class with, for example:
"If you want perhaps the ultimate expression of the ubiquity and utility of chemistry, try life itself. Scientific research has determined that life is chemistry writ large, having documented in exquisite detail thousands of chemical reactions that are taking place in all of your bodies right now. Indeed, if some of those reactions stop, you die. That's how poisons work - by bringing critical chemical reactions to a halt. Though you would be foolish in the extreme to apply that particular piece of chemical knowledge, because forensic scientists will quickly detect your handiwork, link you to it and secure your conviction.
This is not limited to Earth, either. Spectroscopic analysis can tell us if molecules associated with life are present elsewhere, and such spectroscopic findings are already providing the impetus for future NASA missions to Enceladus and Europa. Indeed, if a distant planet many light years away has an oxygen rich atmosphere, a chemist will be the one to tell you about it. Chemists gave to astronomers the tools to detect exotic elements in distant stars and galaxies, and by use of those tools, to test fundamental ideas about the internal physics of stars. Indeed, if you are a chemist, the stars are yours in a particularly deep sense."
All eminently factual of course, but you can have fun running that past a test audience to see if it will fly. Enjoy.